A New Beauty Concept

LAST night, to celebrate Vogue's Fashion's Night Out, the unique concept beauty store BeautyMART launched at Harvey Nichols - featuring a cherry-picked selection of the very best make-up, skincare, haircare and beauty tools around. Today will mark its first full day of trading, so we spoke to Anna-Marie Solowij - who co-founded the venture with Millie Kendall - for the full lowdown on the project. How did the idea of BeautyMART come about? "It came out of a conversation I had with [Harvey Nichols beauty director] Daniela Rinaldi where I was interviewing her and very arrogantly said: 'You've got to mix things up, that's what customers want'. So she said: 'Why don't you put a presentation together?' and it started there. Nobody shops just one brand and it seemed so logical to [business partner] Millie and I to do that. Retailers have been determining how we shop but it's satisfying to edit it down. Like with Revlon - they just have such great colours for lips and nails, so we've chosen the very best ones rather than the whole range." And how did you decide upon which products to include? "It has taken three years, but we've got over 100 brands on board across all price points. Basically, Millie and I made a list of everything in our make-up bags and bathroom cabinets. When we compared the lists we found that about 60 per cent of products were the same, and the same was true when we asked other contacts in the beauty industry for their essentials. And then we polished the lists so that we had a bible of all-time favourites. Some of them are quirky, weird brands from Japan that nobody has heard of, and then some are classic beauty icons like Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream or L'Oréal Elnett hairspray." Did you have a positive response from the brands? "We knew that the idea would live or die based upon the brands, but we've had nothing but positive feedback, from mass to prestige brands. We're not able to take everything we'd like - the space is just 300 square feet - and some brands are unable to participate because of limited distribution agreements. But on the whole, we've got some really great brands, including some really crazy, foreign ones that have never been available in this country before." Which are your favourite BeautyMART products? "We're really happy to have Bioderma Crealine H2O. And Eos, which does really great shaving creams, and a cult US brand called Aqua Net that Millie loves. We're also stocking James Read's tanning line, and the haircare brand Davines which is normally stocked in salons and has things like a hair mask that Madonna uses. There's a Japanese brand called DHC which has very unusual packaging. Also Millie and I have a personal vendetta to get bars of soap back on the beauty agenda. I know that these soaps in pumps keep your bathroom more clean and are probably more hygienic, but a bar of soap is just so much more appealing."